A Postcard from Peru

In recent times, Peru has been increasingly featured in foreign news items, as government agencies have issued warnings advising increased caution when travelling there, owing to rising crime levels and general unrest. It is a great shame that it should be so. Peru is a beautiful country with a fascinating culture and history, as I discovered at first hand when I had the good fortune to tour there some eighteen years ago. At the time, I wrote a poem, trying to encapsulate the varied and astonishing geography, culture, and economy I witnessed. The result was 'A Postcard from Peru', published in my first collection of poetry, A Journey with Time (Lulu, 2008):

A Postcard from Peru

High above the Colca Mountain ranges,
beneath the cloudless, blue, Andean skies,
in a land little transformed by changes,
the sacred condor flies.

Beneath the snow-capped mountains hid by haze,
observed by villagers in clothes quite gay,
llamas, vicunas and alpacas graze
and haunting pan-pipes play.

O’er the waters of Lake Titicaca,
on floating islands of totora reed,
the Uros people chew leaves of coca
and fish to herons feed.

Braving earth tremors in Arequipa,
well-sustained by Pisco Sours,
English tourists haggle to buy cheaper:
the dollar here empowers.

Via the catacombs of San Francisco,
a shaman of the Island of the Sun,
through cactus-strewn plains of the Altiplano,
travellers’ days are done.

Behold the Ice Maiden, Juanita;
the Garden of Lovers in Lima Bay;
the Orient Express is a feature:
rolling on – no delay.

The towering walls of Machu Picchu
instil with awe, inspire, expand the mind.
Support the local trade, we beseech you:
‘Just one sol – that’s most kind!’

From the ancient tombs of Sillustani,
down the pre-Inca terraced, rocky slopes,
to borders protected by the army,
Peru portrays its hopes.

© Copyright 2006 Robert M Jaggs-Fowler

The Value of Indolence

Following on from yesterday's post, I unearthed an entry from my journal, written in March 2010 at the time of my first reading Lawrence Durrell's Bitter Lemons of Cyprus. The following paragraphs are reproduced from it...

Cerebral Tai Chi

'Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection.'

So wrote Lawrence Durrell in his 1957 book, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus. He later described the necessary travelling companions in order to achieve this utopia; namely, loneliness and time, declaring them as 'those two companions without whom no journey can yield us anything'.

He was, of course, writing about his time in that wonderfully complex, Mediterranean retreat otherwise known as the Birth Place of Aphrodite. Indeed, it is where I am now writing, accompanied by a welcoming, though yet still cool, morning sun; its rays reflected by the expanse of yellow wild flowers and intensely luxuriant grasslands which rise behind my home here. The only sound is that of sparrows in a nearby carob tree, interspersed by the distant call of a wood-pigeon, and the soft mewing of a ginger cat, which has seated itself expectantly on the terrace outside my kitchen door, and which now stares back at me in the hope that I have something more exciting on offer than the occasional man-made 'meow' I return to it in the spirit of trans-cultural friendship.

Durrell is a writer I immediately warmed to. His work speaks of a man who understands the enormity of the mundane, the intrinsic value of indolence, the desirability of solitude, and the wealth of material residing just out of reach within the grey cells of one's mind, just waiting to be freed by the onset of some melancholically-induced cerebral exercise.

Cyprus is an island which allows for all of that. It is impossible to ignore the whispers from centuries past that filter through the rocks, like vapours through the pores of a living, yet antiquated, historical tome. 'Listen to me,' the land murmurs; 'listen and feel; listen and learn; listen and understand.'

So I listen, alone and unrushed. I allow the sounds of nature to filter through the labyrinth of neurones which somehow act as the repository of my thoughts; I let the rocky terraces speak to me of the island's origins and the tales of centuries past, laid down within it like seams of history, layer upon eventful layer, and I feel my mind tuning in to that same wavelength which endeared itself to Durrell, as it has to so many writers over the centuries. Yet, as I do so, my thoughts stretch, not just back down the monumental ages belonging to this island, but laterally across to the other side of the world, to the Caribbean Sea, where I sailed less than two months ago, and where, alone and with all the time in the world to muse, I cerebrally travelled back not just centuries, but through millennia, to the time of the world's earliest existence. It was a cathartic moment, and one which I tried to capture in a haiku, written whilst sailing:

Wave laps against wave:

wind's primeval voice echoes

from the start of time.

That, I believe, is precisely what Durrell understood could be achieved from travelling introspectively, with time and solitude as one's companions. It is achieved through bouts of unmoving contemplation; that splendid quality the Moslems know as kayf. It requires no more than the gentle stretching of the grey cells. However, the reward is immeasurable.

A Writer's Prayer

As I restart this blog, I am reminded of 'A Writer's Prayer', written by me in 2008. It seems a good time for such a reminder, as it has already prompted me to delete two possible drafts for risking contravention of the last line of the prayer...

A Writer's Prayer 

Heavenly Father,

may the cloud of words,

which is omnipresent over my head,

with your blessing, pour down

as a shower upon me.

let it percolate through my brain and,

via the conduit of this pen,

reappear as sentences,

formed and erudite,

upon the paper in front of me.

May those sentences be the source of pleasure to many,

provoke thought in at least a few,

and be the cause of harm to no one.

Amen

 © Copyright 2024 Robert Jaggs-Fowler

A Poem for St Valentine's Day

Today is, of course, also Ash Wednesday, a day on which Christians traditionally repent, confess their sins, and renew their comitment to follow a life commensurate with that exemplified by the life of Jesus Christ. However, by a quirk of this year's calendar, Ash Wednesday coincides with Valentine's Day, a day celebrating love. Love is at the very heart of the Christian message, so what better way to observe Ash Wednesday than to also observe the value of human love? 

So, here is a poem dedicated to love. It was written some years ago, and is part of my second collection of poems called On Quarry Beach.

An Intermezzo for Love

Draw back the curtains of the night;                                                                                                              prolong the beauty of twilight.                                                                                                                      May the crimson skies once more show,                                                                                              reflected in the moon's soft glow,                                                                                                                  the softness of your features fair,                                                                                                            enhanced by joy, devoid of care.

And when, at last, the dark descends,                                                                                                        let love's embraces make amends                                                                                                                for all perceptions of neglect.                                                                                                                Then, let sleep come without regret,                                                                                                  bringing dreams devoid of sorrow;                                                                                                      recharging minds for tomorrow,

such that, when the dawn once more breaks,                                                                                                a new love for each other wakes;                                                                                                    empowering hearts to seize the day                                                                                                          and, all deeds done, once more to say:                                                                                                    draw back the curtains of the night;                                                                                                    prolong the beauty of twilight.    

(c) Copyright 2024 Robert Jaggs-Fowler